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Windows 7 Media Center in Canada (ATSC, QAM, Logos)

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234K views 495 replies 95 participants last post by  Dr.Dave 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Knowing how many avid Media Center users there are here at Digital Home Canada, I wanted to let everyone know that the latest hacks for Windows 7 Media Center are now published. It's been a heck of a battle, one that has been fought on many fronts and I'm happy to announce that Canadian high definition in Media Center is working better than ever before!

The highlights:
- I've packaged and tested a new hack (easiest hack yet!) that enables ATSC and QAM in Canada with Windows 7 Media Center. This has been tested by myself and a handful of others on x86 and x64 versions of the RTM release. Thanks for your help!
- Included in the hack is a single-click batch file that add US OTA listings to your Media Center, providing subchannel support and enabling the HD preferences in Media Center recording logic.

-Pete

Edit by Dr.Dave March 9, 2014: The Microsoft links are no longer available. Here is a direct link to Peter Near's blog:

http://pnear.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/enabling-atsc-qam-in-canada-for-windows-7-rtm/

Download ZIP file:

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=3323acf37bd7b107#cid=3323ACF37BD7B107&id=3323ACF37BD7B107!236
 
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#28 ·
Check my thread here on getting it to actually show up on the strip. Post #9.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=130101


Peter, it allows us to log in with our user / pass, but we see the US selection of movies not the Canadian one. If we select a title it doesn't play, I am assuming because of geo locking. I thought of trying it with a VPN or something to see if it would let me play, but I just haven't had time to tinker with it. We also see all the disc borrowing stuff that is not available to us. That doesn't bother me too much if we would only see our Canadian titles. Hopefully other can chime in and add to this.

I was really hoping MS could fix this in time for Windows 7 SP1. That would be a nice treat for sure!!
 
#29 ·
so to summarize, you change your locale to US, then force a 7mc update using the command line, which is probably the same as clicking Download Now as mentioned above. Then Netflix icon appears.

Do you then change back your locale to Canada in 7mc ? If you do change back to Canada locale, do you still have the Netflix icon showing ?

I like your procedure - you must be getting the official Netflix plugin under 7mc which is the one we're hoping Microsoft could fix.
 
#30 ·
That I don't know, I didn't try setting it back. I would assume it goes away after you switch it back. Yes, as far as I can tell it is the official Netflix plug-in.

For now I have IE9 Beta installed and just have a Netflix icon on my taskbar. Hopefully Pete can help us out.
 
#32 ·
location: canada.
tuner: haupage 1250


just installed the tuner, and busted my buttons for many hours fiddling mce/qam. so frustrated I added only the one fix for Canada, and ran setup and low and behold...mce found digital. I want to thank you for this Pete. and piss on microsoft.
 
#36 ·
#37 ·
I was going to go through this again soon, since I seem to have lost my OTA functionality ever since I have removed my 2 combo tuners (HVR-1600&HVR-1800) and replaced them with a single HVR-2250 (dual hybrid tuner).
I may need to make sure the tuners are gone for good in the devices, anyone feel free to suggest a tool to manage to remove the old tuners I removed from this PC. I can recall using 2 1600s and 2 1800s in total...
I'll also be adding a 950q, should I be installing it before re-running the ATSC hack ?

(Sincere thanks to you, Peter, for keeping these instructions accessible. Your past instructions have been invaluable as far back as when I was using XP mce)
 
#39 ·
Guys, don't you think it's intentional (the fact that Microsoft disabled ATSC for Canada)? I mean it's not even a source code change for Microsoft. It's just a configuration fix so if they wanted to enable ATSC for Canada it would have been done long time ago. I still cannot get what could be the reason behind it.

Now, most interesting part comes on September 01, 2011, when Canada switches to digital broadcast. After that date Media Center becomes complete trash for Canadians. But I still don't believe they are going to enable ATSC. If Microsoft could hold on to all complains for so many years without bending, they will continue doing it.
 
#42 ·
hey guys,

I am having issues with adding US guide data to WMC using windows 7. I setup as a US setup to get the guide ID, then I re setup as a canada location. I changed the atsccustom with the guide ID, but when I run the USguide.bat it errors and says the file already exists.

Where is the file located that I need to delete? I have tried rerunning a complete setup and no go.

thanks
 
#44 ·
FYI:

I recently had a mechanical failure in the system drive of my HTPC. When I did a fresh install I decided to setup WMC differently. Instead of using the hack, I ran setup while routed through a VPN (effectively a USA ip address). Everything works beautifully (2x digital and 1x analog tuner). Once setup is complete WMC will behave normally with guide updates, etc with no need for VPN.
 
#45 ·
@pnear

As you may remember I live in Scarborough but have MC setup as if I live in the US so that I can get all of the US online services like Netflix, Hulu, etc (I use unblock-us{dot}com as an IP spoofing service). I want to use your hack in reverse to get Rogers digital cable guide data into my "US" system.

I have two tuners (OTA and PVR-150 connected to a Rogers digital cable SD box) and I ran TV setup in Win7 MC where I entered a Zip Code from Lewiston, NY. The OTA lineup is perfect, including Canadian and US OTA channels. But my cable lineup is all screwed up as MC thinks that I have Time Warner Cable - although the IR blaster does work fine to change channels on my SD3200 cable box.

Is this all I need to do to get the Canadian guide data into MC:
  1. Swap the US and CA codes in the Registry lines in the xml file.
  2. Changes the "Subscriptions" argument to be a Rogers digital cable lineup in my area.
If I do this will I now see all of the Rogers digital Canadian channels in the lineup?

Do I not have to do any sort of initial setup for all of my TV lineup? Or is that what the TorontoGuide.mxf file (or whatever city) actually does? Does this just add the new lineup to the existing lineups or does it replace other lineups?

Does this mean that I manually have to map all of the hundreds of channels that I receive - ie channel 407=TSN, channel 221=Treehouse, etc? That will be somewhat painful - any idea if there is a way of automating this using a batch script and a text file that I could create from Rogers' website of the channel listings?

In your "Add Multiple Guide Listings..." writeup you mention Guide ID 189833220. Is this the correct number for Rogers Mississauga? I guess I can use this for my lineup as all I need is the guide data, not the channel assignments which I have to enter manually. Is the number in the ATSCToronto file (189852674) the number for Rogers Digital Toronto, etc? If not would you happen to know the Guide ID number for a Rogers lineup in the Toronto area.

Would you recommend that I nuke the Time Warner cable setup (so that I don't have hundreds of unused channels in my system)? If so would you happen to know how to delete this or is it painfully obvious?

Is there any quick way to delete all existing channel mappings for my cable tuenr? I have downloaded Guide Tool which looks like it may help at doing this.

I guess your USGuide.bat file also runs immediately due to the schtasks.exe /run /tn ATSCImportToronto line, correct? This will allow me to immediately see if the process worked.
 
#47 ·
Wayne:

Sorry, this is going to be somewhat painful but should work.

Step 1: Set up your Rogers cable, get the guide ID from the about page
Step 2: Set up again using the US Zipcode, select a digital cable provider (looks like this is done)
Step 3: Modify the MXF and XML files for Toronto to replace guide ID with the one you got from step 1.
Step 4: Modify the XML file for Toronto to invert US and CA in the scheduled task setup
Step 5: Run USGuide.bat, you should now have the listings for Rogers cable
Step 6: Manually remap all of the digital cable channels, Guide Tool may help with this

The guideID you're seeing in the hack currently is likely the guide ID for ATSC from the Buffalo area.

Pete
 
#48 ·
To do step 1 will I have to change my country setting to Canada? Will that cause any problems with other US-only stuff that I may have set up - like the Netflix plugin and Hulu desktop? Is this step just to get the GuideID? If so can I just do that on another PC and then retrieve that number. Or could I just ask anyone else in Ontario for the GuideID number - I only really care about channels 100-499 and above and that is the same for everyone in Ontario I think.

If I do step 1 on my main HTPC then I guess I will have to redo step 2 since it will require a US ID, correct?
 
#49 ·
Wayne:

Correct on all fronts. Shouldn't cause any issues with the US-specific stuff as you'll be setting it back to US in step 2. You could easily get the guideID from another machine or another user, but it'll need to be a machine with the STB hardware all set up in order to get the guide for rogers digital.

Sorry, I'm in Cogeco territory or I'd get it for you.

Pete
 
#52 ·
You could easily get the guideID from another machine or another user, but it'll need to be a machine with the STB hardware all set up in order to get the guide for rogers digital.

Sorry, I'm in Cogeco territory or I'd get it for you.
On second thought - does it matter if I use a Cogeco Guide ID? Isn't the object here to just get all of the Canadian digital cable channels into MC. Cogeco has (pretty much) the exact same digital cable lineup as Rogers. Can you please send me your Guide ID and I will try it?

edit - What I mean is that it doesn't matter if the channel numbers are correct, I just need the channels in the system, right?
 
#53 ·
Pnear,

I am new to windows media center and am quite enjoying it. I have a canadian atsc antenna and a american set top box as my sources. I first ran the hack to scan ota from a canadian postal code, and I am able to get my ota channels. I then setup my system of a us zip to get the guide number to use. I cannot get any guide info from my ota, and the guide wont update for the us source. currently i am set to a us zip, and I have tried running the guide update with my vpn running and still no go.

how do I fix this, and what are my options? is there a way to reset and start over?

when I run the USbat file it says it already exists and errors. I have no idea where to find this file.

Thanks for the help.
 
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